Vital Reissues

Peggy Lee
Miss Peggy Lee
COMPILATION PRODUCER: Brad Benedict
Capitol 97826
This four-disc set chronicles the beloved jazz/pop singer's long career with Capitol Records, an arrangement that yielded her best-known and most successful works. A singer who could imbue well-worn standards and originals with an uncanny combination of sensuality, innocence, subtlety, and sheer musicality, Lee scored hits with "Fever," "Don't Smoke In Bed," "Ma˜ana," and many others, all featured here. Having sung with the jazz bands of Jack Wardlow, Will Osborne, and later Benny Goodman, Lee earned the admiration of contemporaries like Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald, and she inspired generations of singers and singing groups from Johnny Mathis to the Manhattan Transfer. Going solo in 1943, Lee flourished as a recording artist and songwriter, often collaborating with her husband, Dave Barbour. A wonderfully candid and in-depth interview with Gene Lees gives historical insight into how Lee, born Norma Deloris Egstrom in North Dakota, overcame deep personal adversity and triumphed as an artist. Quality photographs and detailed track annotations further enhance this lovely package, which does justice to Lee's legacy even if it only scratches the surface of her prolific career.

Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick At Budokan: The Complete Concert
Original Producers: Cheap Trick
Reissue PRODUCERS: Bruce Dickinson & Cheap Trick
Epic/Legacy 65527
Recorded in Japan in April 1978 and released in the U.S. a year later, Cheap Trick's "Cheap Trick At Budokan" catapulted the band into superstardom and became one of the best-selling live albums ever, along with Peter Frampton's 1976 "Frampton Comes Alive!," which had a similar impact on the guitarist's career. "Budokan" yielded smash hits in "Surrender" and "I Want You To Want Me" and made instant rock heroes out of the four lads from Rockford, Ill. Amid a nostalgic wave surrounding the concert's 20th anniversary, Legacy has issued the entire Budokan concert in remastered form on two CDs. While some ardent fans may bristle at the interruption of the original album's sequence, others will appreciate the inclusion of previously unreleased material. In any case, as a collector's item, as a document of a momentous event in modern rock'n'roll history, and as an introduction to new fans, the '98 edition of "Budokan" is a welcome addition to the canon.